TESOL Videos - Pronunciation and Phonology in the EFL Classroom - Place of Articulation Pt. 2

Alveolar sounds get their name from the fact that the alveolar ridge is being used. Again, that ridge is just behind the front top row of teeth. Here the tongue is on or very very near the alveolar ridge. It's typically the tip of the tongue or what's just behind the tip of the tongue, called the blade of the tongue. Here, we're talking about sounds such as ?t? and ?d?. If you say them at home, you can tell the tip of your tongue is on that alveolar ridge. Again, that's ?t? and ?d?, as well as sounds such as ?s? and ?z?. Again, the blade of the tongue is just near that alveolar ridge but it is very near nonetheless. The two other sounds that make it into this category is the ?l? sound, where the tip of the tongue is very clearly touching that alveolar ridge, as well as ?r? or the R sound, where the tongue is just curled a bit but up towards that alveolar ridge. Palatal-alveolar sounds have the tongue moving ever so slightly back in the vocal tract but not quite back to the soft palate. If you compare these sounds to those of the alveolar group, you should be able to feel this difference with the tongue moving just a bit slightly back. The sounds in this group include the SH sound of ?sh?. Closely related to that is the J sound as well as our CH and G sounds. Moving further back now we have our palatal sound. There's only one and that is the Y sound. Here we have our tongue raised high up against the palate in order to make that sound and therefore it involves the palate so it's our palatal sound. Again, that's the Y sound or ?y?. Further back now we have our velar sounds. They're called so because they involve the tongue being raised against the soft palate and we have a few of those sounds as in and ?k? and ?g? as well as the ?ng? sound is made here. Again, it involves the tongue up against that soft palate or the velar region of our mouth with the ?k? and ?g? as well as ?ng? sounds. Finally we have our glottal sound and that's made furthest back in the vocal tract to what's called the glottis. It's way back in the throat, in fact, not in the mouth and the only sound made there is the H sound or the ?h? sound. You can almost tell when you're saying it that it's made way back in the throat. Your mouth is nice and open. The air is flowing through. There's no vibration anywhere in the vocal tract and the sound is being made way back there. Again, that's the ?h? sound.

Below you can read feedback from an ITTT graduate regarding one section of their online TEFL certification course. Each of our online courses is broken down into concise units that focus on specific areas of English language teaching. This convenient, highly structured design means that you can quickly get to grips with each section before moving onto the next.

This unit really allowed me to put all the concepts I've learned over the years into precise sections that will help me to remember and to be a better communicator as I reflect in how I am teaching. I believe it will be beneficial in instructing others to teach while I'm in a foreign country.This unit was very useful bacause it shows us all the resources teachers have to help them in their classes. The tips on testing the equipments before using them, having a backup activity and others were really important to keep us from facing embarrassing situations in front of the students.This section reminds me of effective roles of teachers in the classroom and their effect on the learner. A good teacher possesses the right characterics to attract learners to learn in the classroom process. It throws more light on how to handle every stage at any given time in the classroom.

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